Zoo News Digest is the longest established and most widely read listing of current 'zoo' related news on the internet. It notes 'real' events of interest to people working within the zoo industry. By a Zoo Professional for Zoo Professionals and other interested parties. The Digest includes comments and notification of courses and events.

The sad accident at Sea World Orlando continues to dominate the news and there are numerous opinions out there verging from the insane to the ridiculous. Of course there is a lot of sense being talked too. What really gets to me is the number of loud mouthed cowards, the self proclaimed 'experts' who come creeping out from under their rocks at times like these. I have said it before but there is nothing these people like more than kicking the zoo industry when it is down and grieving over one of its own. I have selected a number of links and have included most of these towards the bottom of the list. Some of these you will probably have already seen but others I can more or less guarantee you have not so do scroll down and read. Some of it is interesting whether you agree or not.

It would appear that the world must be coming out of recession finally, that is if we were ever really in one. I know that many zoos did particularily well during the period. It is refreshing to see that big money is now being spent on new developments in some zoos.

Coming so soon after the earthquake in Haiti I don't believe the world was quite ready for the one in Chile. I do hope that there is aid to spare and the charities get in quickly because in the end people in need are people in need. I do have a genuine concern for the people but care about what happens to the animals too. I noted in one news clip footage of a circus which had been swamped and beast wagons lying on their sides. Thereby hangs a tragic tale but I don't know it. Do you?

I have had a bit of flak this week both in forums and emails over my stance on 'Tiger Encounters'. Some of this has been quite level headed and others has been rude and abusive (which I deleted). Without exception though it has all been anonymous. I have read it all with an open mind but in spite or arguements presented I have not changed my opinion at all. I still cannot get my head around the presented concept that it is better to hand rear tigers because man can do it better with higher survival rates and tame cats have a more stimulated life. Mother reared I believe is better, and do we really need more hybrid tigers?

I did not get any replies, anonymous or otherwise on my query as to whether the Oradea zoo was compensated for the 'loss' of their lions. Read into that what you will. Either nobody knows or nobody is saying. I was just interested when I posed the question but have thought a lot more about it since there was no reply. It puts a whole new slant on things.

The footage of the leak in Dubai Aquarium is quite disturbing. It will be interesting to learn more if ever. I recollect many years ago being actually present when the glass shattered on a large aquarium. We never did figure how or why, but if it had happened literally 2 seconds later or earlier some visitors could have been seriously injured. The Dubai Aquarium is not glass of course but still no less of a worry. I am a great believer in that incidents of this nature along with escapes and accidents need to be investigated and reported upon so that the rest of the zoo industry can learn, can assess and evaluate and take action in their own facilities if needed (Publishing here would be fine as it will reach most of the zoo world...and quickly too).

I am glad to see that Noah's Ark Zoo Farm is now being described as 'A Bristol Zoo' rather 'Bristol Zoo' as I have seen in some stories. Nothing would piss me off more if I were a Bristol Zoo employee and put into the same bed, metaphorically speaking. The phrase 'chalk and cheese' springs to mind. At the same time I am very much against the group of ill informed protestors outside Noah's Ark.

It was sad to learn about the death of the leopard cub in Orissa Zoo. It bothers me though that they were actually aware that there were two cubs. Was there a camera set up I wonder? Please read - Hand Rearing Big Cats and Other Carnivores
I note that there is another hand reared cub in the news at the moment, the Rare (sic) White Lion cub. Getting a lot of photographic publicity unlike those which recently arrived in Australia (not promoted as rare or endangered). Granted this cub is smaller but I do think it is the use of the word 'rare' that wrongly lures the press in.

The ZooNews Digest continues to be read more often by more staff in more zoos than any other publication.

Please consider advertising on this blog as I need the money but understand.... I am of stubborn principle and will not advertise products or services that I disagree with no matter how much you pay me.

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The challenge of saving the orangutan - man's closest relative - from extinction is trickling down to the weekly shop.

Many of the biscuits, margarines, breads, crisps and even bars of soap that consumers pick off supermarket shelves contain an ingredient that is feeding a growth industry that conservationists say is killing the orangutans.

The mystery ingredient in the mix is palm oil - the cheapest source of vegetable oil available - and one that rarely appears on the label of most products.

Palm oil is grown on land that was once home to the vast rainforests of Borneo, and the natural

Biologists affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History and City College of the City University of New York have found that grizzly bears are roaming into what was traditionally thought of as polar bear habitat—and into the Canadian province of Manitoba, where they are officially listed as extirpated. The preliminary data was recently published in Canadian Field Naturalist and shows that sightings of Ursus arctos horribilis in Canada's Wapusk National Park are recent and appear to be increasing in frequency.

"Grizzly bears are a new guy on the scene, competition and a potential predator for the polar bears that live in this area," says Robert F. Rockwell, a research associate at the Museum and a professor of Biology at CUNY. "The first time we saw a grizzly we were flying over the middle of Wapusk, counting fox dens, when all of the sudden Linda Gormezano, a graduate student working with Rockwell and a co-author of the paper, shouted 'Over there, over there—a grizzly bear.' And it wasn't a dirty polar bear or a moose—we saw the hump."

That sighting in August 2008 spurred Rockwell and Gormezano to look through records to get a better picture of the bear population in the park. There was no evidence of grizzly bears before 1996, not even in the trapping data from centuries of Hudson Bay Company operation. But between 1996 and 2008 the team found nine confirmed sightings of grizzly bears, and in the summer of 2009 there were three additional observations.

"The opportunistic sightings seem to be increasing," says Gormezano. "This is worrying for the polar bears because grizzly bears would likely hibernate in polar bear maternity denning habitat. They would come out

A trumpeter swan who helped hatch a significant piece of Illinois conservation history was euthanized today at Lincoln Park Zoo, where the 14-year-old male had been a familiar sight gliding gracefully alongside his mate in a zoo pond.

Over the years, the pair, which mate for life, produced 37 chicks. So far, 34 of the chicks have been released in the wild, mostly through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, which has run a successful campaign reintroducing trumpeter swans into restored wetlands. It is the largest bird native to the Midwest.

A male chick hatched out by the Lincoln Park pair in 2004 became the male half of the first recorded trumpeter swan pair to nest in Illinois since 1847. In 2006, the younger pair built a nest and successfully raised a clutch of chicks in a 35-acre patch of wetland in Savanna, Illinois.

Trumpeters disappeared from Illinois more than a decade before the Civil War due to overhunting. Only a few dozen were left anywhere early in the 20th century.

The species was thought to be extinct early in the 20th century, until a tiny remnant flock was found in Yellowstone National Park. As state conservation departments

Tourism Minister Joseph Ross said yesterday that the upgrade of the Emperor Valley Zoo is expected to be completed by November 2010 and will cost $56.8 million.

In response to a question in the Senate filed by United National Congress Senator Adesh Nanan, Ross said the Tourism Development Authority has been given the responsibility for the implementation of the master plan for the develop- ment and enhancement of the Emperor Valley Zoo at an estimated cost of $56.8 million.

He said the project comprises 14 construction phases, with phase one being the largest and

ONE of Hounslow's most treasured animal charities is appealing for donations as they reveal the site of their possible new home.

Owners of the Tropical Zoo in Syon Park, home of rescued and abandoned exotic animals, feared they could end up homeless after the Duke of Northumberland last year announced they have to move to make way for the Hilton Hotel being built in the park.

However the Indoor zoo, which last week welcomed its 500th animal, a baby Kinkajoo, have announced Hounslow Council may have found them a new home on a

Mali the baby elephant played with a red rubber ball as three Buddhist monks splashed her face with water Thursday in blessing ceremony for the Melbourne Zoo's newest star.

The calf, just under six weeks old, is the second elephant born in Australia and has become the main attraction at the zoo since her Feb. 10 debut.

The Thai Buddhist monks hummed and chanted as Mali played with the ball and ran circles around her mother, Dokkoon, who was brought over from Thailand in November 2006 as part of a program facilitated by the Thai government.

Mali's name was chosen last week by 23,000 Victoria state voters from a list of several suggested by the Thai consulate. Mali is Thai for jasmine.

Elephants are a hallowed national symbol in Thailand, having been long linked with good luck.

"It's a beautiful name for a beautiful calf," said zoo keeper Dan Maloney. "She's growing very quickly, getting more coordinated

I REFER to the report “Groups shocked over tiger video on British TV” (Feb 23). Shock is an understatement to explain the response to the behaviour of the poachers in the video. The fact that it has been shown on UK national news is very embarrassing for Malaysia. Now, the video has gone global and is on millions of social networking websites and blogs.

Now more than ever, the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry and National Parks and Wildlife Department must show that they are serious about taking action and throwing the book at poachers. In the absence of strong wildlife protection legislation, the priority is to prosecute the poachers with the maximum penalty available under the current law.

Under Section 64A of the Protection of Wildlife Act 1972, anyone who kills a tiger, rhino or clouded leopard will be accorded a higher penalty than other listed wildlife. The Act says “Every person who unlawfully shoots, kills or takes a Sumatran rhinoceros, tiger or a clouded leopard or part thereof is guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding RM15,000 or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding five years”.

Six monkeys have been saved from the Israeli illegal pet trade by Wingham Wildlife Park.

The primates were rescued by a charity which trained monkeys to help people who were paralysed from the neck down.

The charity, Helping Hands, trained tufted capuchin monkeys to give their owners a drink through a straw and operate televisions, fans and doors.

The six animals now in Wingham were part of the charity’s breeding programme rather than being trained, but the project was abandoned and the monkeys were given to the Israeli Primate Sanctuary Foundation.

Having previously rescued a group of Barbary Macaques from a sanctuary in the Netherlands, when keepers at Wingham Wildlife Park heard about the animals they decided they had to help out.

As someone who has followed tiger conservation and the Chinese tiger breeding program for a decade, I found Shai Oster's article presented both sides of the argument fairly, which is rarely the case on this emotive topic ("China's Tiger Farms Spark a Standoff," Feb. 12).

However, I would like to point out that the World Bank estimates of the cost of raising a tiger in captivity are inaccurate. It is true that it is much cheaper to kill a wild tiger than to raise a captive bred animal. But that wild tiger must be transported across numerous borders to be delivered to the end consumer, whereas the Chinese tiger is already on site. As an illicit good, bribes and payoffs would be required; the rule of thumb is a doubling of price each time the cargo is handed off from one dealer to another. China has imposed the death penalty for trafficking tiger parts, and this strong deterrent further jacks up the price. The World Bank has made an apples-to-oranges comparison. Frankly, it is astonishing

Frequent "treats" by visitors made a zoo inmate, Zhora the chimp, an alcoholic and nicotine addict, a Russian daily said.

Zoo authorities in Rostov -- 200 km northeast of Moscow -- were quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda as saying Zhora, who had been brought to the zoo from the Tatarstan republic five years ago, was to be taken back to the republic for treatment in early March.

They said visitors at the zoo frequently gave the chimp, a former circus artist, alcohol and cigarettes

Mauritius anger at British plan to set up protected area around Chagos

The Mauritian government has reacted angrily at the decision of certain well known environmental organisations to endorse the United Kingdom government’s plan to set up a Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Chagos Archipelago, APA learns in the Mauritian capital Port Louis on Saturday.

Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicate that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) together with the Marine Conservation Society, Kew Garden, London Zoo and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) have all backed the British government’s project.

The sources declare that the decision of IUCN has created serious dissent within the organisation itself.

The sources indicate that members of the Ethics Group of IUCN, including legal advisers of the IUCN Commission of Environmental Law (CEL) have taken Julia Marton-Lefevre, the Executive Director of IUCN to task for having taken such an unethical decision.

The sources add that Professor Klaus Bosselmann, the President of the Ethics Group and Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law has, in a statement, declared that "IUCN support for the plan to set up an MPA violates IUCN’s commitments towards sustainability

The death of a SeaWorld trainer in Orlando should make us all pause and ponder the consequences of the human desire to subjugate powerful animals.

Forty-two-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau died Wednesday shortly after an orca show at the park. Witnesses say the temperamental whale, Tilikum, plucked Brancheau off a platform, dragged her into the water and thrashed her about as an orca would when attacking a seal or a dolphin in the wild.

Horrified spectators were rushed out of the area and the park was shut down pending investigation.

The same orca had been involved in two other human deaths, one in Victoria's now-defunct Sealand in 1991 and another in Orlando in 1999.

The incident reminds us there are greater issues here than one rogue orca that killed its trainer. As tragic as that is, it speaks to bigger issues in the human psyche.

The twisted desire of humans to take control over wild animals amounts to little more than a power trip - and yet some of us still seem surprised when those animals behave in a completely natural and understandable way.

Orcas should not be kept in pens for the amusement and profit of people. No matter how caring the trainers or lavish the surroundings, a pen can never replicate the whale's true habitat - the vastness of the ocean where each individual is part of a sophisticated matriarchal society. Every facility that keeps whales, orcas or otherwise, for amusement, should be reconsidering today.

This is not about taking a pot shot at all zoo programs. I do not believe we have to shut down the Toronto Zoo and return all the animals to the wild. But there is a core difference between many zoos and a facility like SeaWorld, where animals are made to perform for our amusement. Many zoo programs preserve rare species, have breeding programs and, occasionally, reintroduce endangered animals to the wild.

But when we only keep exotic animals for our own amusement, and to their detriment, it's a barbaric thing that harkens back to bear baiting or having wild animals tear Christians apart at the Roman circuses.

And the exotic animals in captivity need not be the size of a whale to be in danger or to pose a threat to humans.

In January, police found a deadly Gaboon viper in an east Toronto home. Also last month, Norman Buwalda, 66, was fatally mauled by the 300-kilogram pet tiger he kept on his property in the township of Southwold.

Ontario is the only province that does not have laws forbidding ownership of exotic animals. This must change both for the protection of people, and for the dignity of animals.

There is no reason, other than distorted vanity and a ingrained desire to dominate

The demonstration from 11am will be part of their continuing campaign against Noah's Ark Zoo Farm. They say the aim is to remind members of the public of the ongoing investigation being undertaken by North Somerset Council, in relation to allegations of animal cruelty.

BARC say they've received overwhelming public support from the public at past protests with passing motorists hooting in support of their cause.

Group spokesperson Jo Penny said: "Our position on zoos is that we don't agree with them, it's not any knid of a life inside a zoo for an animal. With the best will in the world you can't recreate an animals natural habitat or diet or the social structures of the groups within the species, any of that, it's impossible to do it."

She added: "Our ultimate aim is to close the zoo. Two ways we're doing that is by putting pressure on the council for them to revoke the zoo's licence and also by getting their visitor numbers down because if people don't go to the zoo they won't be able to operate."

We've also spoken to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm. A spokeman there said: " We expect business as usual tomorrow with little effect from the small number of BARC protestors who might turn up. We strongly defend our excellent record of animal welfare here at Noah's Ark and expect BARCs allegations be refuted by Council inspectors at our zoo inspection taking place shortly."

He added: "It's fair to say that most people in the zoo industry and those who know Noah's Ark have little time for the BARC, who have lied and mis-represented our business several times over

THEY were some of the biggest animals to roam Britain before being pushed to extinction centuries ago. Now brown bears, wolves, lynx and elk may be reintroduced to the countryside.

A report compiled for Britain's largest national park has identified 23 species that once thrived in Britain and have the potential to live there again. Ecologists said in the draft report that large carnivores, such as wolves, brown bears and the Eurasian lynx, could benefit tourism and the environment.

Campaigners have been pushing for lynx and wolves to be reintroduced because they could control deer numbers, protecting woodland.

Researchers said that it would take at least 250 brown bears and a similar number of wolves to maintain viable populations. But they warned that such large species would be hard to sustain in relatively small areas of land and might threaten livestock.

The report will be presented to the Cairngorms National Park's board later this year, as it considers what species it will attempt to reintroduce into the Scottish Highlands. Dr David Hetherington, a park ecologist, said: ''Of the large carnivores we looked at, the

Meet Edgar, a handsome cat who has come all the way from Estonia to do nothing less than help save his species.

He plays it cool, of course, lounging around in the snow, lazily gazing at visitors. You'd never know that behind those spots and blue-gray eyes are million-dollar chromosomes.

"Genetically, he is one of the most important leopards in the country," said Scott Mitchell, Erie Zoo president.

Edgar is an Amur leopard -- one of the most endangered big cats in the world. Amur leopards are native to Korea, China and Russia.

"It's estimated that there are less than 240 Amur leopards left in the world -- 100 in European zoos, 80 in U.S. zoos, 10 in Canadian zoos and less than 30 in the wild," said Cindy Kreider, Erie Zoo director.

The reason Edgar is so important is that his genes are not represented in any of the Amur leopard populations in the U.S. He was imported from Europe about 10 weeks ago along with another male Amur leopard that went to the Minnesota Zoo.

"Edgar and the other male are what the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan calls a 'founder,'" said Kreider, who serves as vice chair of the Amur leopard SSP. "Their genes are unrepresented

Jammu and Kashmir government has launched Species Recovery Programme (SRP) for the endangered snow leopards, Mrkhor and Kashmiri stags to prevent their extinction.

"Jammu and Kashmir Government's forest department has launched centre aided SRP for three species- snow leopard, Hangul (Kashmiri stags) and Mrkhor- for reversing the extinction process of such species in J-K," Forest Minister Mian Altaf Said here.

"In year 2009, the estimated population of Hungul has been recorded at 175 only," the Minister said.

He said that a breeding centre for Hangul is being established at Shikargah Tral in Kashmir.

"The project, being funded by Central Zoo Authority of India, Dehradun, has been approved by the Minisry of Environment and Forests, Government of India," Altaf said.

It is being funded under the species recovery Programme of centrally sponsored scheme 'Integrated Development of Wild life Habitats', he said.

Five National Parks and 13 Wildlife sanctuaries are presently being controlled and looked after by the State Wildlife Protection Department

Donna Bennett wishes she'd jotted down the contact information for a woman she met a year ago during a slide show about the early days of Mesker Park Zoo — before it had Botanic Garden attached to its name.

"She was in her 90s and grew up in a house that faced Garvin Park when the city got its first zoo animals," said Bennett, the zoo's administrative assistant. "Maybe

At Fort Worth Zoo, a world-class collection is given a world-class home

For years, Fort Worth Zoo Director Michael Fouraker and his top curator of coldblooded animals felt that many of nature's masterpieces weren't getting their due.

Creatures as artistically and evolutionally marvelous as the green mamba, Utila Island iguana and Chiricahua leopard frog lived in a plain-Jane box, a half-century-old building crumbling slowly from overuse by millions of energetic children and cramped keepers.

Fouraker and curator Diane Barber knew that a new "snake house" was needed for plumbing and electrical reasons alone. But they also imagined a place that elicited less screaming and more awe from children who have made the reptiles and amphibians some of the most popular animals at the park.

"If you take those same kids to a museum, they are quieter and more attentive," Fouraker said. "We kept thinking, 'How do we create that museum atmosphere where the kids look at the scales, the colors and the patterns of the animals, to where they stop and look and see what is really there in front of them?'"

Their answer was just to simply call it a museum, the Museum of Living Art.

What neither of them anticipated then, in the early 2000s, was that selecting that name would launch the zoo on a course no other zoo in North America had yet charted -- raising millions of dollars to build an architecturally significant and striking herpetarium for animals that have long lived in the shadows of the great apes, eleph

One from here died, another became ill from unsually cold Florida weather

Winter cold recently killed one former Columbus Zoo and Aquarium manatee and hospitalized another, but zoo officials still believe in the federal program to rescue and release the gentle mammals.

"The objective is to get them back into the wild where they can reproduce," said Doug Warmolts, assistant director of living collections at the Columbus Zoo. "Once they're out there, they're subject to all the threats an everyday manatee has."

Gene, a Columbus Zoo manatee from 1999 to 2005, died last month from cold stress brought on by an unusually long spell of cold temperatures in Florida. He'd been released there three years ago after living in captivity for 30 years.

A goods train knocked down a herd of five elephants crossing the track on the outskirts of the city, killing two of them and injuring three others, including a calf, today.

Assam state zoo director Narayan Mahanta said the herd was crossing the track along the Deepor beel to drink water when they were hit by the train around 12.15 pm. Last year, one elephant had died at the same area.

Two female pachyderms died on the spot. Three others, including a calf, were seriously injured and they were brought to the state zoo for treatment.

Over its 135-year history, the Buffalo Zoo has never needed a sharpshooter to confront a predator on the loose.

And though it doesn’t expect to confront that scenario anytime soon, the zoo is asking the Buffalo Police Department’s Special Weapons and Tactics team to be ready to answer the call, just in case.

Members of the police unit have toured the Delaware Park zoological gardens to familiarize themselves with the layout — especially exhibits containing dangerous animals—and a memorandum of understanding between the zoo and the police is being readied, zoo President Donna M. Fernandes said.

The arrangement will include an emergency phone line to the SWAT team, she said.

Rifles always have been kept handy on zoo grounds, and the staff invariably included one or more marksmen capable of dealing with an animal escape or an attack on a keeper. Firing a sedative dart to immobilize the critter would

Auckland Zoo has reached a milestone with the 200th and 201st kiwi to be incubated and hatched at zoo being released on Motuora Island in the Hauraki Gulf.

The two kiwis are part of the BNZ Operation Nest Egg programme which has been running since 1996.

As part of the programme, kiwi eggs are pulled from the wild in Northland, incubated and released into a pest-free zone for a year or so while they get strong enough to protect themselves against predators.

Northland brown kiwi have been struggling against predators for years and Auckland Zoo's NZ Fauna curator Ian Fraser says the 200 birds they have released could produce

Sometimes a singular incident can trigger a wave of enormous and lasting proportions. In late 1987, one such wave washed over Sea World, San Diego and sent the entertainment park’s owner, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, tumbling in the wake. The media was investigating park operations. Protesters picketed the front gates. Lawsuits drained the corporate coffers. Even the normally tame OSHA in on the act and issued a report censuring the park. In the end, Sea World had to sacrifice its own staff to survive. The park president, chief trainer, zoological director, and public relations chief were all fired. It was a little less than two years later when the wave finally receded and claimed its last victim. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich quit the aquarium business and sold its parks.

The incident, which began this whole process, happened during a weekend performance on November 21st. A trainer was riding on the back on a killer whale, when another leapt into air and landed squarely upon the individual. The man, who had been training orcas for two years, was crushed. His ribs, pelvis, and femur were all broken into pieces. He would survive, but only barely. “It was a timing problem,” a spokesperson stated afterwards. “It was absolutely not an aggressive act on the part of the whale.” Orky, the whale referred to, made a mistake. Yet others were not so sure.

As the pressure mounted on Sea World, new facts started to emerge. It was soon reported that three trainers had been injured in the past three months. According to the park, these were minor scraps. No big deal. Later, though, more numbers came out. There had been fourteen separate injuries in past the five months. Some were not overly serious, such as bites to the hands. But others were. Trainers had been rammed while in the water. In fact, among the fourteen injuries at the San Diego park, at least three had involved neck and back trauma. In June, an orca named Kandu jumped on top of a person during a rehearsal. In March, Orky actually grabbed a hold of a trainer during a performance and pulled the person down to bottom of the thirty-two foot deep tank. He then rushed to the surface and spat the trainer out. At which time, another whale slammed into the individual. With the person floundering about, Orky grasped onto the man once again and pulled him under. The attack lasted two and half minutes, and the trainer was taken to the hospital with broken ribs, a ruptured kidney, and a lacerated liver.

Subsequent lawsuits would release the next round of revelations about Sea World. We would, for example, find out that orcas have “dangerous propensities.” As one trainer spoke candidly about the attacks: “it’s not [a question of] if but a when.” We would discover that Orky himself was partially blind and had additional, severe health problems. Yet Sea World forced him to perform anyway. So damning was the evidence given in the trial for the November 21st incident that Harcourt and Brace lawyers cleared the courtroom beforehand and had the majority of the records sealed from public view at the conclusion. But the trouble did not stop there, as OSHA was ready to issue its findings. The report, which was made public, concluded that Sea World’s orcas were under a tremendous amount of stress and that this factor could have been a central cause in the attacks. This was not an unsubstantiated hypothesis.

Sea World orcas work as many as eight shows a day, 365 days a year. In the ocean, these whales can swim up to ninety miles a day. In captivity, the tanks are measured in feet. In the ocean, orcas have a highly evolved and cohesive matriarchal culture. Generations of family members, combining both females and males, spend their entire lives together—with each family, or pod, having its own unique form of dialect. In captivity, little to none of this exists. Their culture is effectively destroyed. Indeed, lawyers for Harcourt and Brace wasted little time in dealing with OSHA. The federal office withdrew its findings almost as quickly as it sent them out and made a public mea culpa. Nonetheless the damage had already been done.

Sea World was forced to admit that it had a problem. “A series of accidents [had occurred] that are more serious than we’ve had in a short period before,” a high-ranking administrator stated for the record. The theme park would, he went on to promise, thoroughly review each of the incidents, so that “new safety measures” could be devised and implemented. In the meanwhile, the orca shows would continue, but no trainers would be allowed in the water. “I don’t know,” the individual continued, “how long it will be” before they are permitted back in. Behind the scenes, Sea World was grappling with a different issue. Namely, what it was going to do with Orky—for all of this trouble began in the spring when he first arrived to San Diego.

Orky and Corky had been the star attractions at Marineland since the early 1970s. Located in the Palos Verdes section of Los Angeles, the ocean-aquarium was California’s first theme park. Orky and Corky themselves came to Marineland in 1968 after being captured off the coast of British Columbia. They were just a year or two old. This is, in fact, the best time to take orcas. For when they reach adolescence, controlling them becomes far more difficult. Orcas begin to resist. In the case of Orky, he became, in the words of one trainer, “gruff,” “stubborn,” and plain “exasperating.” The most notable incident involving the whale took .....

Call him, just for now, Spartacus. He was two years old when the slavers captured him in 1982 and hauled him off to Oak Bay, near the town of Victoria, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, in the far Canadian west. And there he met his fellow slaves, Nootka and Haida. Day after day, in slave school they learned their tricks. Day after day, they did their act for the paying customers. And then, on February 20, 1991, in the tank operated by Sealand of the Pacific, the three struck back at their captors.

Okay, not Spartacus, but an orca whale – Tillikum, the one who drowned 40-year-old Dawn Brancheau last Wednesday in the Shamu tank, at SeaWorld, Orlando, after grabbing her by her ponytail. Tillikum was caught off Iceland. Nootka and Haida, both females, were seized in the Pacific. In fact, Nootka was the third orca by that name to be bought by Sealand. The first two died within a year of their capture. At that time, enslaved orcas had a life expectancy in captivity of anywhere from one to four years. These days they do a bit better. In wild waters, orcas live to be anywhere from 30 to 60.

By the time of the 1991 slave revolt, Nootka III already had a couple of priors back in 1989, when she’d attacked trainers twice. Then, on Feb. 20, 1991, Keltie Byrne, a 20-year-old marine biology student, champion swimmer and part-time trainer, slipped while she was riding on the head of one of the orcas. Tillikum, Nootka and Haida took turns in dragging her beyond reach of trainers trying to hook her out with long poles. As Jason Hribal, author of our forthcoming CounterPunch/AK Press book Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden Story of Animal Resistance, reconstructed the episode on our CounterPunch site,

“‘The whale got her foot,’ an audience member recalled, ‘and pulled her in.’ We do not know which orca it was that started it, but all three, Nootka, Haida, and Tillikum, took their turns dunking the screaming woman underwater. ‘She went up and down three times,’ another visitor continued. The Sealand employees ‘almost got her once with the hook pole, but they couldn’t because the whales were moving so fast.’ One trainer tossed out a floatation ring, but the whales would not let her grab it. In fact, the closer that such devices got to the young woman, the further out the whales pulled her into the pool. It took park officials two hours to recover her drowned body.”

As is typical with theme parks in the business of exploiting animals, whether whales or elephants or some other captive breed, Sealand tried to pass off the disaster as a one-in-a-thousand mishap – sort of a bad-hair day for orcas. The citizens of Vancouver Island didn’t see it that way. Many said the whales had understandably mutinied against their ghastly imprisonment and exploitation and should be freed. They started picketing Sealand. The company trotted out the usual story that captive orcas actually like being slaves, forced to work 365 days a year, several times a day and, if freed, would swiftly die. What is meant here is that slave orcas are worth a lot of money – up to a cool million each, which explains why Russia has now lifted its ban on orca trafficking.

There are actually quite detailed Canadian laws governing the export of wild creatures. Sealand, soon to go out of business, got the permits by saying the whales needed to be sent south to the U.S. for “medical reasons.” Sold to the SeaWorld empire, Tillikum was shipped off under cover of darkness to Orlando, Florida. Nootka followed, and died there in 1994 at the age of 13. Haida and her calf Ky ended up in SeaWorld, San Antonio. Haida died in 2001 but imparted the spirit of rebellion to Ky, who nearly killed his trainer in 2004.

SeaWorld got its start in the mid-1960s, founded by four UCLA grads planning to run an underwater restaurant and marine life exhibit. After various ups and downs, in the late 1980s, the three SeaWorlds passed into the hands of the vast brewing conglomerate Annheuser-Busch, which pumped millions into upgrades, finally selling the theme parks to the Blackstone Group for $2.7 billion in 2009.

So, there’s a lot riding on the slave orcas toiling away (according to a SeaWorld official, as many as 8 times per a day, 365 days a year) as the star attractions in each of the Shamu stadiums. The first Shamu was put to work in the San Diego SeaWorld, now on its fifty-first “Shamu” – one of 20 enslaved orcas presently owned by Blackstone. Tillikum’s asset value is enhanced by his duties as a sperm donor. He’s a breeding “stud” often kept in solitary, away from the other orcas. One of his

An animal trainer died after being attacked by a killer whale at the SeaWorld amusement park in Orlando, Florida, as horrified visitors looked on.

Dawn Brancheau, 40, was killed after the 30-year-old, 12,300-pound bull orca named Tilikum, jumped out of a tank, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her underwater.

Her death is the latest in a string of fatalities involving experienced animal trainers and wildlife experts.

December 2009: Alexis Martinez Hernandez, 29, a wildlife trainer, fell from a whale and crushed his rib cage at Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Park officials said the whale, a 14-year-old named Keto, made an unusual move as the pair rehearsed a stunt in which the whale lifts the trainer and leaps into the air.

October 2009: Anton Turner, a British safari guide, was killed when he was charged down by an elephant during filming of a BBC children’s programme in Tanzania. The 38-year-old had been assisting a television crew in shooting an episode of the CBBC series Serious Explorers, which traces the footsteps of explorer David Livingstone in Africa. Friends described him as “one of the most experienced” people with elephants in the world.

April 2008: Stephan Miller, an American animal trainer and Hollywood stunt double, died after he was mauled by a five-year old grizzly bear named Rocky in San Bernardino, California. The 7ft6ins, 50 stone animal bit Miller once on the back of the neck. Miller, 39, the founder and owner of Predators in Action – a company that trains wild animals for film and television appearances – died almost instantly. Rocky has appeared in the Hollywood movie Semi-Pro starring Will Ferrell.

April 2007: A trainer was killed and more than 20 onlookers injured when an elephant went on the rampage at a ceremonial festival in the south Indian state of Kerala. The man was picked up by the elephant, called Vinayan, using its trunk, and trampled to death.

September 2006: Stephen Irwin, the Australian wildlife expert, died after being fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef. Nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", Irwin, 44, had become a television personality through a series of nature programmes in which he seemingly brazenly handled crocodiles, snakes and other deadly species.

March 1991: Pamela Orsi, 27, an animal trainer, was trampled to death as she tried to break up a fight between two elephants at San Diego Wild Animal Park, California. She

A killer whale attacked and killed a trainer in front of a horrified audience at a SeaWorld show Wednesday, with witnesses saying the animal involved in two previous deaths dragged the trainer under and thrashed her around violently.

Distraught audience members were hustled out of the stadium, and the park was immediately closed.

Veteran trainer Dawn Brancheau, 40, was one of the park's most experienced. It wasn't clear if she drowned or died from the thrashing.

SeaWorld spokesman Fred Jacobs confirmed the whale was Tilikum, one of three orcas blamed for killing a trainer who lost her balance and fell in the pool with them in 1991 at Sealand of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia.

Tilikum was also involved in a 1999 death, when the body of a man who had sneaked by Orlando SeaWorld security was found draped over him. The man either jumped, fell or was pulled into the frigid water and died of hypothermia, though he was also bruised and scratched by Tilikum.

A retired couple from Michigan told The Associated Press that Wednesday's killing happened as a noontime show was winding down, with some in the audience staying to watch the animals and trainers.

Eldon Skaggs, 72, said Brancheau was on a platform with the whale and was massaging it. He said the interaction appeared leisurely and informal.

Then, Skaggs said, the whale "pulled her under and started swimming around with her."

Skaggs said an alarm sounded and staff rushed the audience out of the stadium as workers scrambled around with nets.

Skaggs said he heard that during an earlier show the whale was not responding to directions. Others who attended the earlier show said the whale was behaving like an ornery child.

The couple left and didn't find out until later that the trainer had died.

"We were just a little bit stunned," said Skaggs' wife, Sue Nichols, 67.

Another audience member, Victoria Biniak, told WKMG-TV the whale "took off really fast in the tank, and then he came back, shot up in the air, grabbed the trainer by the waist and started thrashing around, and one of her shoes flew off."

But Jim Solomons of the Orlando County Sheriff's Office said Brancheau slipped or fell into the whale's tank, which seemed to contradict Biniak's description.

Authorities provided few immediate details. SeaWorld in San Diego also suspended its killer whale show after Brancheau's death. It is not clear if the killer whale show has been suspended at SeaWorld's San Antonio location, which is closed until the weekend.

According to a profile of Brancheau in the Orlando Sentinel in 2006, she was one of SeaWorld Orlando's leading trainers. It was apparently a trip to SeaWorld at age 9 that made her want to follow that career path.

"I remember walking down the aisle (of Shamu Stadium) and telling my mom, 'This is what I want to do,"' she said in the article.

Brancheau worked her way into a leadership role at Shamu Stadium during her 12-year career with SeaWorld, starting at the Sea Lion & Otter Stadium before spending the past 10 years working with killer whales, the newspaper said.

She also addressed the dangers of the job.

"You can't put yourself in the water unless you trust them and they trust you," Brancheau said.

Steve McCulloch, founder and program manager at the Marine Mammal Research and Conservation Program at Harbor Branch/Florida Atlantic University, said the whale may have been playing, but it is too early to tell.

"I wouldn't jump to conclusions," he said. "These are very large powerful marine mammals. They exhibit this type of behavior in the wild.

"Nobody cares more about the animal than the trainer. It's just hard to fathom that this has happened."

Mike Wald, a spokesman for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration office in Atlanta, said his agency had dispatched an investigator from Tampa.

Wednesday's death was not the first attack on whale trainers at SeaWorld parks.

In November 2006, a trainer was bitten and held underwater several times by a killer whale during a show at SeaWorld's San Diego park.

The trainer, Kenneth Peters, escaped with a broken foot. The 17-foot orca that attacked him was the dominant female of SeaWorld San Diego's seven killer whales. She had attacked Peters two other times, in 1993 and 1999.

In 2004, another whale at the company's San Antonio park tried to hit one of the trainers and attempted to bite him. He also escaped.

In December, a whale drowned a trainer at a Spanish zoo.

Then there was the July 1999 incident at the Orlando SeaWorld, when the body of a naked

I am writing on behalf my friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and their more than 2 million members and supporters around the world, as well as everyone who wants to see whales and dolphins living free in their ocean homes and human beings protected from needless attacks when those animals are kept in captivity.

The death of yet another trainer at SeaWorld did not have to happen, and I must appeal to you to take strong action now so that it never happens again. I know that the Blackstone Group was asked to close the SeaWorld theme parks when you acquired them last year. I urge you to make that humane move now and to start moving the captive orcas and other marine mammals to transitional coastal and wildlife sanctuaries and replace them with state-of-the-art virtual reality exhibits such as those used in the hugely popular "Walking With Dinosaurs" exhibits that wow youngsters and adults alike. The experience would be like watching free-living wild animals, whereas captive animals' unnatural and neurotic behavior patterns

Officials now say it may have been the ponytail of the trainer that caused an Orca Whale at SeaWorld to snap.

40-year-old Dawn Brancheau, who is from Indiana, most likely died of traumatic injuries according to doctors.

At a show at SeaWorld in Orlando Wednesday the veteran trainer was pulled from a platform and dragged under the water by a Killer Whale named 'Tilly'.

Here in Fort Wayne, zoo officials talk about safety measures they take with all wild animals.

Fort Wayne Children's Zoo Director Jim Anderson says, “We had a keeper severely injured by a tiger...oh, six, eight, ten years ago. Mistakes were made. All you can do...all we can do and we work with our keepers all the time is think safety. Think safety. Every employee in

The death of a SeaWorld trainer in Orlando should make us all pause and ponder the consequences of the human desire to subjugate powerful animals.

Forty-two-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau died Wednesday shortly after an orca show at the park. Witnesses say the temperamental whale, Tilikum, plucked Brancheau off a platform, dragged her into the water and thrashed her about as an orca would when attacking a seal or a dolphin in the wild.

Horrified spectators were rushed out of the area and the park was shut down pending investigation.

The same orca had been involved in two other human deaths, one in Victoria's now-defunct Sealand in 1991 and another in Orlando in 1999.

The incident reminds us there are greater issues here than one rogue orca that killed its trainer. As tragic as that is, it speaks to bigger issues in the human psyche.

The twisted desire of humans to take control over wild animals amounts to little more than a power trip - and yet some of us still seem surprised when those animals behave in a completely natural and understandable way.

Orcas should not be kept in pens for the amusement and profit of people. No matter how caring the trainers or lavish the surroundings, a pen can never replicate the whale's true habitat - the vastness of the ocean where each individual is part of a sophisticated matriarchal society. Every facility that keeps whales, orcas or otherwise, for amusement, should be reconsidering today.

This is not about taking a pot shot at all zoo programs. I do not believe we have to shut down the Toronto Zoo and return all the animals to the wild. But there is a core difference between many zoos and a facility like SeaWorld, where animals are made to perform for our amusement. Many zoo programs preserve rare species, have breeding programs and, occasionally, reintroduce endangered animals to the wild.

But when we only keep exotic animals for our own amusement, and to their detriment, it's a barbaric thing that harkens back to bear baiting or having wild animals tear Christians apart at the Roman circuses.

And the exotic animals in captivity need not be the size of a whale to be in danger or to pose a threat to humans.

In January, police found a deadly Gaboon viper in an east Toronto home. Also last month, Norman Buwalda, 66, was fatally mauled by the 300-kilogram pet tiger he kept on his property in the township of Southwold.

Ontario is the only province that does not have laws forbidding ownership of exotic animals. This must change both for the protection of people, and for the dignity of animals.

There is no reason, other than distorted vanity and a ingrained desire to dominate

The death of a SeaWorld trainer in Orlando should make us all pause and ponder the consequences of the human desire to subjugate powerful animals.

Forty-two-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau died this past Wednesday shortly after an orca show at the park. Witnesses say the temperamental whale, Tilikum, plucked Brancheau off a platform, then dragged her into the water and thrashed her about as an orca would when attacking a seal or a dolphin in the wild.

Horrified spectators were rushed out of the area and the park was shut down pending investigation.

The same orca had been involved in two other human deaths, one in Victoria’s now-defunct Sealand in 1991 and another in Orlando in 1999.

The incident reminds us there are greater issues here than one rogue orca who killed its trainer. As tragic as that is, it speaks to bigger issues in the human psyche.

The twisted desire of humans to take control over wild animals amounts to little more than a power trip — and yet some of us still seem surprised when those animals behave in a completely natural and understandable way.

Orcas should not be kept in pens for the amusement and profit of people. No matter how caring the trainers or lavish the surroundings, a pen can never replicate the whale’s true habitat — the vastness

Experts calls for SeaWorld to free Tilikum (Tilly), aquarium refuses to part with whale

According to a whale expert, the 12,000-pound orca that killed a SeaWorld Orlando trainer this week should be given a chance to live out his days at sea. The expert, Naomi Rose, said the whale, Tilikum, should never be trusted around humans and deserves to be in the wild.

SeaWorld President Jim Atchison said SeaWorld will not part with its enormous whale, despite it having been involved in three human deaths. Tilikum is an important part of the team at SeaWorld and still has value to the aquarium.

“He is a very important part of our team,” Atchison said. “This is one of the largest marine life facilities in the world. We have created an extraordinary opportunity for people to get up close. We can educate people. We make no apologies for that.”

According to Rose, a scientist with Human Society International, using the whale for economic gain is the equivalent of turning the animal into novelty act.

“They are predators in the wild," Rose said, "and we make them into circus performers that can be touched and hugged and kissed. How is that education?”

Rose said the time has come to allow Tilikum the same freedom given to Keiko, the

You can take an animal out of the wild, but you can’t take the wild out of an animal.

Tillikum, a killer whale, was implicated in the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau last Wednesday after he pulled her into his tank where she drowned.

Tillikum was blamed for the death of a trainer in 1991 and a man in 1999 as well. It should also be noted that all of the whales participating in SeaWorld’s show last Wednesday were not cooperating with the trainers, which shows that Brancheau’s death was not a freak accident, but rather a manifestation of the larger issue at hand: the keeping of animals, especially large, predatory animals, in captivity.

Other SeaWorld trainers are attempting to gloss over the underlying problem by chalking Brancheau’s death up to her “swinging ponytail.” It’s possible that Brancheau’s hairstyle was responsible for triggering a menacing sense of playfuln

The death of a SeaWorld trainer in Orlando should make us all pause and ponder the consequences of the human desire to subjugate powerful animals.

Forty-two-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau died this past Wednesday shortly after an orca show at the park. Witnesses say the temperamental whale, Tilikum, plucked Brancheau off a platform, then dragged her into the water and thrashed her about as an orca would when attacking a seal or a dolphin in the wild.

Horrified spectators were rushed out of the area and the park was shut down pending investigation.

The same orca had been involved in two other human deaths, one in Victoria’s now-defunct Sealand in 1991 and another in Orlando in 1999.

The incident reminds us there are greater issues here than one rogue orca who killed its trainer. As tragic as that is, it speaks to bigger issues in the human psyche.

The twisted desire of humans to take control over wild animals amounts to little more than a power trip — and yet some of us still seem surprised when those animals behave in a completely natural and understandable way.

Orcas should not be kept in pens for the amusement and profit of people. No matter how caring the trainers or lavish the surroundings, a pen can never replicate the whale’s true habitat — the vastness

An animal trainer died after being attacked by a killer whale at the SeaWorld amusement park in Orlando, Florida, as horrified visitors looked on.

Dawn Brancheau, 40, was killed after the 30-year-old, 12,300-pound bull orca named Tilikum, jumped out of a tank, grabbed her around the waist and pulled her underwater.

Her death is the latest in a string of fatalities involving experienced animal trainers and wildlife experts.

December 2009: Alexis Martinez Hernandez, 29, a wildlife trainer, fell from a whale and crushed his rib cage at Loro Parque on the Spanish island of Tenerife. Park officials said the whale, a 14-year-old named Keto, made an unusual move as the pair rehearsed a stunt in which the whale lifts the trainer and leaps into the air.

October 2009: Anton Turner, a British safari guide, was killed when he was charged down by an elephant during filming of a BBC children’s programme in Tanzania. The 38-year-old had been assisting a television crew in shooting an episode of the CBBC series Serious Explorers, which traces the footsteps of explorer David Livingstone in Africa. Friends described him as “one of the most experienced” people with elephants in the world.

April 2008: Stephan Miller, an American animal trainer and Hollywood stunt double, died after he was mauled by a five-year old grizzly bear named Rocky in San Bernardino, California. The 7ft6ins, 50 stone animal bit Miller once on the back of the neck. Miller, 39, the founder and owner of Predators in Action – a company that trains wild animals for film and television appearances – died almost instantly. Rocky has appeared in the Hollywood movie Semi-Pro starring Will Ferrell.

April 2007: A trainer was killed and more than 20 onlookers injured when an elephant went on the rampage at a ceremonial festival in the south Indian state of Kerala. The man was picked up by the elephant, called Vinayan, using its trunk, and trampled to death.

September 2006: Stephen Irwin, the Australian wildlife expert, died after being fatally pierced in the chest by a stingray barb while filming on the Great Barrier Reef. Nicknamed "The Crocodile Hunter", Irwin, 44, had become a television personality through a series of nature programmes in which he seemingly brazenly handled crocodiles, snakes and other deadly species.

March 1991: Pamela Orsi, 27, an animal trainer, was trampled to death as she tried to break up a fight between two elephants at San Diego Wild Animal Park, California. She

About Me

I have worked in the zoo world for over 48 years in the capacity of keeper, head keeper and curator. For information related to a zoos, zoo careers and more please see:
http://hubpages.com/_BL29/hub/The-Zoo-Hubs
See also my profile at:
http://www.google.com/profiles/elvinhow